The Very Rocks Do Weep
by Adara-chan67
Summary: Castiel has thoughts. He thinks about Dean, about the war, and about his doubts. It's really short--just shy of 800 words--and not quite like anything I've done before, so I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me!


_Disclaimer: Despite all the time I've had to retrieve them, I still don't own the characters or plot of Supernatural! I do, however, own this story._

_Characters: Castiel_

_Setting: Season 4, after _It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

_Warnings: Introspection on the part of an angel, and not exactly the best thing I've ever written_

_Author's Note: Guess what? I'm alive! I know, right? It's quite a surprise. Anyways, I feel I have to drop in a note before I begin this little thing, to let you know that it is not at all what I planned for my first update since September. It's really nothing more than a VERY RANDOM piece churned out in exactly thirty-two minutes. I'm actually working on a longer piece—and have been for almost two months—but it's not finished yet. So until it does get finished…read! Read!_

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The Very Rocks Do Weep

When I look at Dean Winchester, I see many things.

I see a warrior—a man of steel, a man of muscle, a man who sees nothing but the battle in front of him and will do anything to win that battle.

I see a brother—a man of care, a man of protection, a man whose entire being is focused on keeping someone else alive and will do anything to win _that_ battle.

I see a skeptic—a man of doubt, a man of distrust, a man who has lived his life believing a certain thing and is loathe to change it..

But most of all, I see his pain, and I see his anger. I see that he has no understanding of why he is here, why he must go on, why he is forced to endure the agony of remembering where and what he has been, why he is required to look on as others are in pain.

He doesn't understand what he must do, because he doesn't want to understand. When Uriel and I tell him that he must leave innocent people to be slaughtered, he resists.

He doesn't understand.

He is becoming unsure that we are Good. I can see it. Uriel can see it. We can all see it. We know that he thinks we have no cares for anyone at all, and we are angry.

No. Not we. _They._

The difference between myself and the rest of us—the angels—is that I know. I know what he feels because I have felt it, too. I, too, have felt the doubt of the tactics, but I have never questioned their intent—not once in all the millennia that this war has existed. I have moved some of the pieces on the board—under direction—and have never questioned that the moves were good ones to make.

But I know the doubt, and I wish that I could explain to Dean Winchester why it is groundless. I know it is, even as I feel it, but if I tried to tell Dean why, he wouldn't understand, because he has never been an angel.

Being an angel is not something that can be comprehended, let alone explained. You have to _be_ one to _understand_ one. If Dean had ever been an angel, even for a second, then he would know that we do not make such suggestions as the deaths of humans lightly. In fact, our souls cry out every time one dies, no matter how evil, no matter whether or not it is our own choice—they cry out so loudly that the cries echo from the very bones of the earth.

And yet, we never stop the deaths. We never simply wave our hands and banish evil from the face of the world, from the face of other worlds, from the universe itself. Dean has, no doubt, wondered why we don't, but the truth is that we can't.

No human, no faithful human, has ever been able to grasp that fact—not really. But it's true nonetheless. We are bound by chains forged in the very birth of the world, chains formed by a hand so strong that only that hand can break them, and only they with great cost. The cost of every sentient life, every tree, every blade of grass, every rock upon the earth. The chains must never be broken, for any reason, because without them comes absolute power—power to stop death, power to cause it, and when that game begins, where will the finish line be?

And so we battle like anyone else. We put soldiers on the field, and we watch as they die.

We watch, and we e feel the death of every human, and then we feel the pain of those who go through life without them. And all the time, we suffer even more by knowing that our enemy is watching us. Watching and laughing and gloating over the soldiers they take from the battlefield as easily as one might pluck a blooming rose from the warm, wet earth.

We watch, and we weep so that it seems as if the very rocks will join us, and then we send more out to fight—to die so that their children will live, so that their dogs will live, so that their gardens and their grass and their trees will live.

And as we weep, the skies grow red.

We wish that we could stop. We long to tell our soldiers to lay down their weapons and rest, and we cannot.

But Dean Winchester does not understand any of this.

Maybe someday he will.

I hope not.


End file.
